Earth Museum / Occoneechee Trapper's LodgeQ. J. Stephenson (1920 - 1997)
Extant
State Road 1310, Garysburg, North Carolina, 27831, United States
1940s-1990s
The current owners of the Trapper's Lodge welcome visitors to walk around the museum grounds between Monday and Friday during daylight hours.
About the Artist/Site
In his late sixties, after working for many years as a dredger, dragline operator, and trapper in eastern North Carolina, Q.J. Stephenson reflected: “My whole life was digging in the earth…That's when I really learned something about the earth, by digging deeper and deeper. Each layer is like another chapter of a book.”
For five decades between 1950 and his death in 1997, Stephenson collected objects which surfaced in the course of his work––including animal bones, fossils, iron ore, driftwood, shells, plant matter, and human-made artifacts––and incorporated them into a handbuilt cinderblock lodge constructed in the front yard of his Garysburg home. Born in Garysburg in 1920, Stephenson grew up traveling along the rivers and creeks in the region, trapping and selling pelts as a means of earning income. As a teenager, he joined the New Deal-era Civilian Conservation Corps program, which sent him to fight forest fires, plant trees, and cut trails while stationed in California redwood country. As is recorded on an incised concrete plaque on the facade of the Trapper’s Lodge, Stephenson became interested in displaying natural collections for those in his community after returning from the CCC (or as he put it, “Roosevelt’s Tree Army”). Having learned a great deal about the workings of natural ecosystems during his time in the program, he built his lodge––called Earth Museum, Trapper’s Lodge, or Occoneechee Trapper’s Lodge––as an educational site for those in Northampton and Halifax counties. Those who visited the museum heard Stephenson lecture about the geological history of the region, local animal species (whose tracks he pressed into mosaiced concrete panels after trapping), and the value of indigenous philosophies. Natural objects and artifacts were worked into the concrete-coated facade and interior of the lodge along with identification labels, impressions of plants, glitter, and sculptures of invented and real creatures. After Stephenson’s death in 1997, a handful of sculptures were acquired by local museums and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The site continues to be maintained as a teaching environment, with most of its original decoration, by private owners.
Narrative by Gabrielle Christiansen, 2024
Sources:
- Q.J. Stephenson interviewed by Barry Gurley Huffman, Hand-in-Hand: Visions and Voices of North Carolina Folk Artists, 2016.
- Quinton J. Stephenson interviewed by Lawrence S. Earley and Ted Dossett, “Occoneechee Trapper,” Wildlife in North Carolina, May 1987.
- Mike Spriggs interviewed by Gabrielle Christiansen, July 2024.
Contributors
Map & Site Information
State Road 1310
Garysburg, North Carolina, 27831
us
Latitude/Longitude: 36.444932 / -77.5529762
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